Where did the time go?

The Bean went from looking like this
at the beginning of October...















...to this at the end of October.















In December he looked like this

And today, at 4.5 months, he looks like this.






















How did that happen?

He's rolling over (stomach to back), passing toys from one hand to the other, drinking 6-8 ounces of formula every 3-4 hours, sleeping through the night, giving open-mouth kisses, is fascinated by the cat and LOVES his papa. He wants to sit up, not lay down, is incredibly curious and enjoys listening to music. He watches us very carefully when we eat, puts everything in his mouth and might just be teething. He has had a cold for almost a month and a half, but that doesn't change his sunny personality. He loves taking baths, hates having his nails trimmed and has the most unruly hair you've ever seen in your life. He'll only smile for the camera when I don't use the view finder, but instead make funny faces at him. He has more nicknames than one kid probably should. He's growing into size 68 (4-6 months) and out of 62 (2-4 months). He finds blond-haired people fascinating (there just aren't that many in his life) and likes a pacifier when he's tired.

He's simply the best bean ever.

Olympics and other thoughts

I haven't posted since October 2008. Wow. I have taken breaks before and every time I start blogging again, I promise that I'll keep it up. But given my history of not keeping it up, I'm am not going to make any promises. I do, however, generally have more time on my hands these days, so it might just work out this time.

So I intensely dislike the fact that the Olympics are taking place in Vancouver. The time difference with Vancouver is 9 hours. Which means that a hockey game at noon in Vancouver is on at 9 p.m. in Germany. And the ones that we really want to watch are on at 2 a.m. Not to mention that I have seen 0 ice skating, because it's on so stinking late. The Germans seem to be in love with all things skiing, so we get a lot of that in the prime time.

Being the nuts that we are, we decided to actually get up at 2 a.m. in order to watch the Canada vs. US hockey game. It was a good game, worth getting up for. Thank goodness for the Swiss, who televised it. If it were up to the Germans, we wouldn't have been able to see it at all. (As much as I like hockey, I'm not willing to pay for it on iTunes.)

But I was a bit horrified at the end of the game, when the moderator mentioned that the schedule of further games is not yet available, because the American TV station broadcasting the Olympics has to talk with their advertisers before they can determine who will play whom when.

Now, my Swiss German is not as fluent as my German and it was 4 in the morning, so I thought that I might have misunderstood. So I asked Marc if he had heard the same thing that I did (his Swiss German is better AND he needs less sleep than I do). He had indeed heard the exact same thing.

Why did I find that so disturbing? I think it's because I personally think that the Olympics should be about, well, the sports and the Olympians and not about if the cornflakes folks would prefer to have their advertising during the US or during the Canadian game. Maybe I'm being too naive?

In other news, it's 50 and partly sunny here and I am LOVING this preview of spring!

I made these cookies last week. They are YUMMY! But dangerous to have in the house, because you cannot possibly eat just one....To help with this problem of not eating just one and the excess post-baby weight that's still hanging around, I bought a Wii on Ebay this week, including Wii Fit Plus and the Balance Board. I'm very interested to see what kind of a workout I can have with Wii Fit.